[Stealing its central bank reserves is not going to do anything
except starve innocent civilians. ]
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JOE BIDEN’S SENSELESS ECONOMIC STRANGULATION OF AFGHANISTAN  
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Ryan Cooper
August 16, 2022
The American Prospect
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_ Stealing its central bank reserves is not going to do anything
except starve innocent civilians. _

A man and a child sitting on the ground beg in Kabul, Afghanistan,
August 14, 2022., Kyodo via AP Images

 

The Biden administration announced Monday
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that it would not release any of the $7 billion in Afghanistan’s
central bank reserves that are currently in U.S. possession, and
pulled out of talks with the Taliban. The reported reason was that the
recent assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul
revealed that he was living near a house owned by Taliban interior
minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. It seems the administration’s intention
is to inflict collective economic punishment for at least some Taliban
leaders having allowed al-Zawahiri to live in Kabul.

Previously, the administration had suggested that half the money could
be used to stabilize the country’s collapsed economy. Yesterday’s
announcement was therefore disastrous news for ordinary Afghans, who
are facing mass unemployment, drought, high inflation, and food
shortages if not outright starvation by the millions. According to a
recent report
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fully 97 percent of the country’s population is now in poverty.
Families are selling their children
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for food.

Biden’s decision is both foolish and barbaric. It will accomplish
nothing in the fight against terrorism, and cause certain terrible
suffering. If he had any sense, he’d take quiet steps to allow
Afghanistan a measure of economic recovery.

Now, it is certainly plausible to suppose that al-Zawahiri was being
sheltered or at least tolerated by Haqqani. But the administration has
presented no proof of this, nor that the broader Taliban leadership
knew about his presence. Haqqani was taking a terrible risk, and
it’s not hard to imagine other Taliban elites being very annoyed at
him over this.

Moreover, and initial media reports to the contrary, it is widely
accepted that the increasingly elderly and infirm
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al-Zawahiri had been de facto retired, and the al-Qaeda organization
he led has been largely moribund
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for years. The real energy in extremist terrorism since 2014 has been
concentrated in the Islamic State and its affiliates. The Taliban have
been fighting the (truly psychotic
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“Khorasan” branch of IS since 2015. Indeed, one of the major
threats to Taliban rule has been their inability thus far to suppress
routine IS-K bombings
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of schools, hospitals, and mosques.

By the same token, there is little chance that permanently cutting off
the Taliban from Afghanistan’s central bank funds will cause them to
reconsider harboring other al-Qaeda figures, should they feel like
doing so. If holding its central bank reserves hostage didn’t do it,
then permanently stealing them surely won’t either. Now the Taliban
have nothing to lose, aside from the threat of military
force—unlikely, given recent history.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration just proved that it has far more
specific tools available should it want to continue hunting down
al-Qaeda figures—namely, drone strikes. It’s not what I would do,
but at least the associated damage to civilians is many orders of
magnitude less than a famine. (To be fair to Biden, he has drastically
cut back the rate of drone strikes
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predecessors—the one that got al-Zawahiri was the first in
Afghanistan since U.S. troops departed a year ago.)

 
There are far more effective weapons to fight terrorism than starving
40 million people.

To be sure, if the administration did provide funding to Afghanistan,
it would face some legal constraints. As Scott R. Anderson explains at
Lawfare
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there are numerous default judgments against the Taliban in U.S.
courts, so if Biden were to recognize them as the legitimate
government of Afghanistan, the assets would be seized by the courts
(which is part of why the administration set them in a special account
in the first place). But at least Biden could use the $3.5 billion for
some kind of economic stabilization, as it previously suggested. And
fundamentally, if the president were determined to get Afghanistan
sufficient resources to jump-start its economy, he could surely do so.

As is, yesterday’s decision means American policy is working at
cross-purposes. Other parts of the Biden administration are helping
coordinate
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a vast humanitarian relief effort that has so far avoided a full-blown
famine, though only barely. What Afghanistan needs is enough currency
reserves and a relaxation of sanctions to allow its collapsed banking
system to recover and something like normal economic life to resume.
Until the economy is stabilized, it will be necessary to keep aid
flowing indefinitely—and who knows what would happen if a Republican
wins in 2024?

If the last 20 years have proved anything, it’s the limits of
American power when it comes to influencing what happens in
Afghanistan. The Taliban may or may not listen to reason when it comes
to harboring terrorists. But there are far more effective weapons to
fight terrorism than starving 40 million people.

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The American Prospect Article
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Ryan Cooper is the Prospect’s managing editor, and author of ‘How
Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question
in Politics.’ He was previously a national correspondent for The
Week.

* Afghanistan in Poverty; US Holds Afghanistan's Central Bank Funds;
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